Ernst Lindemann (naval officer)

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Lindemann during the commissioning of the Bismarck, 1940

Ernst Lindemann (born March 28, 1894 in Altenkirchen (Westerwald) , † May 27, 1941 in the North Atlantic ) was a German naval officer , most recently sea ​​captain and commandant of the battleship Bismarck in World War II .

Life

Imperial Navy

Lindemann, son of the President of the Prussian Central-Bodenkredit AG Ernst Lindemann , joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1913 as a midshipman . After completing one month of basic training at the Mürwik naval school , he was transferred to the large cruiser SMS Hertha for nautical training . The outbreak of the First World War saw Lindemann, meanwhile promoted to ensign at sea , on board the old liner SMS Lothringen , where he first served as III., Then as II. Radio officer. On September 18, 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant at sea . On March 19, 1916, he was transferred as a radio officer to the liner SMS Bayern , which had just been commissioned . On board the Bayern , he took part in the conquest of the Baltic Islands in October 1917. The ship was hit by a mine during the operation, carried out the coastal bombardment and then had to return to Kiel damaged.

After the armistice , Bavaria was transferred to the British naval base Scapa Flow in November 1918 as part of the internment association of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter . Lindemann did not experience the self- sinking of his ship on June 21, 1919, as he had already returned to Germany in January 1919.

Imperial Navy

After his return, Lindemann was assigned to the admiralty staff in Berlin , where he served in the naval command office and as an adjutant in the naval department. On January 7, 1920 he was promoted to first lieutenant at sea . From October 1, 1922 to September 30, 1924 he was a watch and division officer on the liner Hanover . On October 1, 1924, Lindemann took over the 1st (Artillery) Company of Coast Guard Division III in Kiel / Friedrichsort as a company commander . Since attending a course at the ship artillery school in Kiel (February 5, 1924– May 3, 1924), Lindemann began specializing more and more in artillery, after having been radio and telephony before that.

On January 1, 1925, Lindemann was promoted to lieutenant captain. With the autumn change in 1926 he was transferred to the naval station of the Baltic Sea as an admiralty staff officer for three years . After that he was second artillery officer and ensign officer on the ship of the line Alsace for a few months . At the end of February 1930 he switched to the Schleswig-Holstein liner in the same position . From September 22, 1931 to September 22, 1933 he was a teacher at the ship artillery school in Kiel. In this position he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän on April 1, 1932 .

From autumn 1933 Lindemann was the first artillery officer on the ship of the line Hessen . In April 1934 he became the Wilhelmshaven Naval Shipyard for Baubelehrung than I. artillery officer to the new battleship Admiral Scheer added. During his time on board, this ship was used for the first time from July 24th to August 30th 1936 in the Spanish Civil War.

Navy

After returning from Spain, Lindemann, who had been a frigate captain since October 1, 1936 , was initially transferred to the operations department in the naval command office; at the same time he was a consultant in the naval training department. After 18 months he took over as chief of the naval training department (A IV) and was promoted to sea captain on April 1, 1938.

About a month after the start of the Second World War, Lindemann succeeded Captain Heinrich Woldag as commander of the Ship Artillery School (SAS) in Kiel-Wik . In addition to the three training departments, the commander of the school was also responsible for the artillery school ships Bremse and Hektor , numerous artillery school boats, artillery carriers, auxiliary vehicles and, at times, the Aviso Grille .

Lindemann came to Hamburg at the end of July 1940 for building instruction on the battleship Bismarck . On August 24, 1940, he put the ship into service as commander. He went down with him on May 27, 1941 after the Bismarck had been shot to the wreck by the British battleships HMS King George V , HMS Rodney , the heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire . There are various reports of how Lindemann behaved during the sinking of the Bismarck. The highest-ranking survivor of the Bismarck, Kapitänleutnant Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg, recalled that Lindemann, wearing a life jacket, had stood on the bridge a few minutes before 8.30 a.m. on May 27, 1941, resigned and absent. The artillery officer v. Müllenheim described this in his memoirs, which he published at the age of 80. There he also remembers that in the evening hours of May 26, 1941, Lindemann repeatedly tried with various maneuvers to sail east with the Bismarck in order to bring the ship and crew to relative safety, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Other reports describe that Lindemann walked from the bridge to the upper deck to the foremost point of the forecastle in the last minutes before the sinking. While the bow sank under him, he gave a military salute.

On December 27, 1941, Lindemann was posthumously awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in recognition of his performance in the sinking of the British battle cruiser HMS Hood and the damage to the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales on May 24, 1941 in the battle in the Denmark Strait . During the battle, Lindemann had given the Bismarck a fire permit on his own, ignoring his superior, Admiral Günther Lütjens . Lütjens accepted this insubordination without protest .

The family grave at the Dahlem cemetery was supplemented with a memorial entry for Ernst Lindemann.

Heroes' memory until 1945

Lindemann's death in battle was viewed as exemplary during the Nazi era . The Lindemann Battery , which was part of the Atlantic Wall , which was supposed to repel the expected Allied invasion of Western Europe, was named after him . The battery was equipped with the 16-inch guns of the unfinished H-class battleships and was one of the strongest in the fortification.

One of the 40.6 cm guns made for the H-Class in a single mount in the Atlantic Wall (1944). The enormous dimensions of the weapon become clear in comparison with the people around.

Awards

literature

  • Jens Grützner: Sea captain Ernst Lindemann - the Bismarck commander. VDM Heinz Nickel, Zweibrücken, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-047-4 .
  • Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck 1940/41 - The report of a survivor. Ullstein, 1980, ISBN 3-550-07925-7 .
  • Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck - A survivor in his time. Ullstein, 1992, ISBN 978-3-550-07658-9 .
  • Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck. A survivor reports on the splendor and fall of the Bismarck on May 27, 1941. Flechsig Verlag, Würzburg, 2005, ISBN 978-3-88189-591-0 .

Web links

Commons : Ernst Lindemann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ German Marine Institute with the support of the Military History Research Office : The naval officer as a leader in combat - lectures at the historical-tactical conference of the fleet 1983 , Mittler Verlag 1984, p. 130.
  2. ↑ Holger Afflerbach : Go down with a waving flag . P. 609 in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , vol. 49, no. 4, 2001, pp. 595–612, ISSN  0042-5702
  3. ↑ The first artillery officer of the Bismarck , Corvette Captain Adalbert Schneider, had already received the same award a few hours before the ship's sinking.
  4. ^ Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck , Flechsig Verlag 2005, p. 120.
  5. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1932, p. 44
personal data
SURNAME Lindemann, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, most recently sea captain and commander of the Bismarck in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Altenkirchen (Westerwald)
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1941
Place of death North Atlantic